Social Media SEO tutorial for beginners Lesson 3

This is third lesson of Social Media SEO tutorial for beginners. In this article we will discuss about Twitter social network site. In previous article we covered Facebook in details. In case you missed the previous article then you can read it at this link.

How to use Twitter for your Website?

Twitter is very popular social networking site. In nature it is different than Facebook. You can post your thoughts in short sentences. It is best suited for announcement and short messages for your followers.

Twitter is great tool to built traffic and brand.The benefits of Twitter can be summarized in below points

Getting incoming referral traffic from tweeted content

Increasing visibility of your content and brand (website)

Building Social Authority.A profile with good number of real followers is highly valued

You can opt for paid tweet service after having good number of real followers

In case you have used Twitter then you will be aware how it works. But even if you do not then also you can read on the post. You can create account while reading this article as well. We will cover below topics in this article

Creating Twitter account for your website

Adding Twitter buttons on your website

Making most out of Twitter for traffic and SEO

Should I create Twitter account for my website?

You should create a separate Twitter account for your website.If you already have a Twitter account (personal one ) then also create one for each website. You should not use your personal Twitter account for your website.There are multiple reasons of it.

Tweet Content

Lets understand this with a example. You have created a website on Cakes. So people following you expect tweets about Cakes from you. Personal Twitter accounts are used to share all kind of Tweets like Politics, Finance and Entertainment.

So if you are using your personal account for Cakes website you are sharing unrelated content with your followers. You might be sharing few things about cakes but with so many unrelated content tweets may switch off some followers.

Unrelated content tweets dilute your targeted tweets as well. So it is always better to differentiates between two types of accounts.

Future Growth proof

Everyone starts out with one website. Initially the website has very few visitors. Most of us think of using our personal Twitter account to promote it. Your personal account will have followers including your close friends and family.

Based on your promotional tweets you will get new followers.With time if website grows big we think of creating a dedicated twitter account for website. During this transition we lose old followers and again have to promote the new account from scratch.

In fact during initial stages of website you should promote your new twitter account to your family and friends and tell them to tweet about it. This way you ensure that your new account is getting some traction initially. Using a new account will take time to grow but you do not have to switch afterwards.

Better Management

One account catering need of everything (your personal flavors and professional one) is not a good idea. You will have combination of both in your followers. Though it will be easy to manage. You can log into one account.There is no need to switch between accounts.

The only issue is remembering two different account credentials. But Twitter App has made it very easy to switch between accounts. It remembers your login details and you can switch to other account with just one click.

Apart from login issue there is no harm in having two different accounts. You can post contents matching the target followers. The increases engagement and better chances of converting readers into followers.

Things to consider while creating Twitter account

I will not discuss how to create Twitter account here. It is very easy process and you might be aware of it. Rather I will focus on some key points you should keep in mind while creating account for your website.

You should use Twitter User Name which reflects or is associated with your website domain name or website name. It should not be entirely different. Visitors can associate your Twitter handle with your website easily

Provide an interesting description or catch phrase which is associated with your website niche. So people can easily know what is your website focus area or your tweet focus area.

You can use your website logo as Twitter profile image. Note people easily remember the brand images. So your profile image and header image should convey information about your brand.Ideally header image should be descriptive to give idea about brand and profile image should be brand image itself

Above I have focused much on website domain name or website name to decide your Twitter profile name. I have written separate article on how to determine the domain name of your website. Now that you have created your profile let see how can you make it popular (increase follower count). I will only show ways to increase real follower count (free methods) not fake ones.

How to promote your Twitter account?

After creating your profile the most challenging part is having first 50 or 100 followers. We will cover initial steps you can take to reach this level first. These steps will be helpful going forward as well.

Give Visitors a reason to Tweet or Follow

People want some reason to get associated with you. For established websites this is not a concern. People see follower count and get attracted. But for new sites things are difficult. Low follower count switches off visitors from following on.

So it is better to offer something (eBook, PDF, media etc) in exchange of Follow or Tweet. The best way is to use Social Locker plugin if you are using WordPress. Visitors can download the file immediately on tweeting or following you.

Inform Subscribers about your Twitter profile

For a new website this may not be very fruitful as you will have too less subscribers. But it is good way to get some followers in. You should inform your Email subscribers about your new profile. A simple message like you can get informed about new content or interesting content directly on twitter. This will do.

You should not overdo it. Like you should not send too many emails forcing email subscribers to act on your mail. This will have negative impact. You should send one mail and let them select if they want to follow you on Twitter or not.

You can also inform your Facebook page followers about twitter profile. You can write a post about your Twitter profile and invite people to connect there as well if they want to.

Include Twitter on your Social Media profile

Above you have informed already subscribed people about your new profile. Now it is time to let every visitor know about your presence on twitter. One way of doing it is to include link to your Twitter profile.

For example on your Facebook page about section you can link to your twitter profile. So people visiting about section will know about it and they may select to follow you there. Similarly you can include it on your WordPress profile or Quora profile or any other similar place. This gives people an option of following you there.

You may not see immediate impact but with popularity of your profile different social media platforms will help you increase follower count on twitter.

Adding Twitter follow button to your website

Twitter makes it easy to increase your follower count with Twitter Follow button. You can use this button on your website. Visitors can click on it and easily follow you. You can also place link to your Twitter profile as well.

Later in the post I will discuss different ways to place follow button on your website. Each method has its own advantage and disadvantage. There is no best or worst method. You should decide based on your site requirement.

Do’s and Don’t on Twitter

Things discussed in this section applies to your business Twitter account. You should not consider it as rules for personal account. Most of the things are applicable to most websites. But there may be exceptions as well.

Things you should do

Lets first start with the positive part. These basic rules help you while promoting your brand on Twitter. Sometimes while promoting we over promote us. Partly because early into blogging or online entry we try to get too many followers or tweet interaction in short span of time. That’s why we listed these points to help you in these early stages.

Tweet relevant content

Lets understand this with an example. You have created website on Cakes. So you should post content linked to Cakes in some way like How to create Egg-less cake or Largest cake in this world. Whatever you share should be related to theme of your website because people following you expect something related to cakes only.

You can share articles or videos from other websites as well. People in early stages ignore this. They tweet their own content so that they can increase their traffic. But there is no harm sharing interesting related content even if it is not yours. This keeps your visitors engaged. In between other articles you can sandwich yours.

Follow related accounts

The aim of being on Twitter is not only to increase your follower count but discovering new content ideas is very important. You can follow accounts which are popular and related to your niche. Following them you can learn how they have become popular in your niche.

You will notice things they tweet or write about on their site. This will help you get content ideas. You can retweet their tweets , direct message them and connect with them. This way you are also making your presence. In future if they retweet any one of your tweet you are increasing visibility of your content immensely.

This mutual sharing relationship helps you create your space and grow with time. You can clone and improve on ideas you get from leading people on your niche for your own benefit.

Be Consistent

This is something very easy to say but hard to implement. Ideally we should regularly post on Twitter. But in reality we tend to post huge number of posts one day and then go on isolation for more than a week. This infrequent sharing does not help.

Too much sharing on one day may switch off people. It may be too many posts on which you want them to react. Asking too much on a given day is not advisable. Also chances are that certain percentage of your followers are online on that day. So they may miss your tweet.

After sharing flood of tweets if you are off by few days then there is a gap created. So it is better to share the articles regularly at different times of day. You can also check which timing is working for you.

Be Responsive

Communication is back bone of any social networking site. People may ask questions through messages or on your tweet. You should be responsive to these queries. You should try to answer them or at least provide information they want.

By answering there query you are engaging with your audiences. It may not be directly fruitful to traffic or revenue as conversation is taking place outside your website. But you are converting a person to your reader or follower.

The person may refer your services or products or website to others who may be source of revenue or traffic. This word of mouth is very powerful even in current days. So be responsive to answer questions people have on your content.

Use Images and Videos

Images and Video have better engagement rate. You should accompany your Tweets with interesting related images or videos.This increases chances of your success. You might have noticed tweets by major players or companies always have accompanying images or videos with the tweets or links.

Having said that it does not mean you should add any image or video to your tweet just for sake of having one. If there is anything related and interesting then you can add one. It does good for you. But adding unrelated images and video does not work well. You should try to avoid it.

Using Hashtag

Hashtags after there introduction have become very important for every tweet. It is better to hashtag your tweet if it is related to one. For example if you are tweeting about any recent happening then you can add that hashtag.

Adding hashtag does not harm to your tweet. You can think of as a category.You are clubbing your tweet as content type denoted by hashtag.

Things you should not do

Above are some key things you should keep in mind.Now I will discuss some points which you should never do. They may be dangerous to your online venture.

Offensive tweets

Everyone has a opinion. It may be different from other. Your online business is not place to share your personal view about Politics or other controversial matter. You should not mix both the profile content.

You may be inclined to different thought schools than some of your followers. So there is no need to stir controversy by posting something controversial off topic tweet about people or religion or politics. If you want to share your thoughts then it is better to use your personal twitter account then the professional one.

Irresponsible remarks or content sharing will ultimately hurt you So refrain making controversial remarks which may hurt emotions of mass.

Spamming

People want to make it big quickly on Twitter or any other social networking site. So initially they tend to share lot of content in hope of increasing follower count and traffic to website. This goes on for few days but if things do not work as hoped then they give up.

During this hope period it looks like they are spamming even if there intent is not to Spam others. You lose followers or other think of your account as unprofessional account. It decreases chances of being followed. It also harms your own morale as well.

Adding Twitter buttons to your website

While discussing how to promote your twitter profile we discussed about Follow button. Twitter has few buttons and widgets which you can place on your website. In this article we will cover two buttons

Follow button – Visitor will be able to follow you on Twitter

Tweet button – Visitor will be able to tweet your article

These two are widely used on majority of websites. I will discuss different ways you can add on your website along with pros and cons of each.

Method 1 – For WordPress Users

This is the easiest method. It also allows you to reward your visitors if they tweet or follow you on Twitter. They can download file if they tweet or follow you on Twitter. Since you are giving them reason chances of interaction with button increases.

With this idea in mind I ave created plugin for WordPress. The plugin helps you add Twitter buttons on your site offering file downloads after action. This way you can easily increase your follower count and traffic from twitter.

Note you will also be able to track number of file downloads in Google Analytics as well. This helps you understand performance of the button.

Method 2 – For All websites

This method is applicable to all websites. It has performance benefit compared to last method. The last method uses JavaScript. This method does not use javaScript. So performance wise this second method is better than last method. Also you can track performance of your button in Google Analytics.

Note in the last method also we are loading JavaScript after page load. So the page load time is not impacted. Currently Google uses page load time as one of factors in ranking. For visitor experience also page load time is important. So third method is not that bad for performance.

But since you are using JavaScript for the buttons it has to be loaded after page or before page. this may take sometime and add to page size. So for mobile sites I recommend second method and for generic desktop sites third method is recommended.

If you are using too many social media buttons then each will have it’s own JavaScript. This significantly increases page size and load time. So you should decide the method carefully.

This tracking functionality is not present in the last method. The only drawback in this method is extra step visitor have to take to like or tweet your content. A new window is opened on which visitor have to follow you or tweet your content. In third method this takes place on the web page itself.

You should place the tweet and follow button codes were you want to display them.

Above code will place a simple button with Twitter text. You can use Image instead of simple HTML button. The HTML button helps you save some bytes. But if that is not a concern then you can use Images like Twitter logo or any other similar images instead of the button.

If you do not have google analytics on your website then delete below line from above code before adding it to site.

Method 3 – For all websites

In this case we will use JavaScript. I have already listed Pros and Cons of this method above. You can use this method in most of the cases without any issues. Note the JavaScript for Follow button and Tweet button are same. So you do not have to worry about using both the buttons.

This method involves two steps. First step is to add JavaScript code to end of web page. Ideally you should add it before </body> tag of your website. In case you are using WordPress then majority of theme have this tag in footer.php file. So you can add below code just above </body> tag.

The second step is to add button code. Button code should be added at place you want to display Twitter buttons. Ideally Tweet button is below the post content or post title. Twitter follow button should be in sidebars or footer.

Conclusion

It was a long article. I wanted to cover everything you need to know about Twitter. You can now use it to increase your website traffic and brand visibility. You can also post your queries on this tutorial as well.

Consider sharing this post in case you found it useful. In the next article I will discuss one more social networking website which you can use to increase your website traffic and for search engine optimization.